


Breaking Habits

by Ravenspear



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-29
Updated: 2010-12-29
Packaged: 2017-10-14 05:25:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/145839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ravenspear/pseuds/Ravenspear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's always been a runner. And John <i>terrifies</i> him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breaking Habits

_"Your're a coward, father," Jörmungandr had said, smile calm and mellowly affectionate, with saltwater dripping from the body he'd borrowed from a drowned fisherman. "You run away when things get hard. It's what you do. It's what you've always done."_

 _Loki had readied himself to argue, to spit his fury (the fury that burns where perhaps his guilt should be, had he ever allowed himself to feel it), but Jörmungandr raised a hand, and he stayed himself._

 _"I don't mean to shame you; I find nothing shameful in escaping," his son had said. "I am merely trying to strip you of your self-delusion. You invite only pain by trying to fool yourself."_

 _"I can take care of myself, thank you," Loki had spit._

 _And Jörmungandr had looked at him, with cold serpent's eyes, and his voice had been dark and fierce like the sea. "I know you can, father. But you are not the only one who suffers from your self-aggrandizing lies. Hel and Fenrir believe all of them, too, and I am tired of watching them come to harm for the sake of your ego."_

 _Loki hadn't replied. He'd just left, furious, telling himself that it was because he didn't need to take undeserved words, not even from his son._

 _(He hadn't let himself recognize that he made Jörmungandr's point for him, and he wouldn't for many, many years.)_

\---

It's not like he'd planned for any of it to happen.

In fact, his plan had been to stay the fuck away from any and all Winchesters, only maybe looking in on them when shit started getting serious. Just to make sure everything went according to the Divine Plan.

John coming to find him, a broken-hearted shell of a man looking for his dead wife (and didn't _that_ bring back memories?), had never been on the freaking map. Neither had seeing John's kids - Dean barely five, Sam one - and feeling fucking _furious_ at what John was doing to them. Neither had his decision of _following_ them.

And actually getting _involved_? _Caring_ about all of them? Yeah, not even on the same _starchart_.

But he had. Somewhere along the line, stalking John and the boys back and forth across the continent, he'd gotten caught up in them. He'd started sharing their happinesses and their griefs, and by the time he semi-officially started travelling with them, he was probably already a little bit in love with all of them.

It made for a really fucking rude awakening, the morning after spending the night in John's bed for the first time.

Because John was going to die, and Sam and Dean were going to be Lucifer and Michael's vessels. Because divine prophecy said so, and divine prophecy never lied.

He ran. He didn't call it that at the time, but running is what it was. He left John and Dean and Sam behind, and he ran, chasing the night across the globe, drinking and eating and fucking and outrunning the sun for two whole months.

He's still not sure how he ended up in Norway (he'd _sworn_ never to walk his adopted homelands ever again), but that is where dawn finally caught up with him, sitting on a wood-covered mountainside, looking out over the fjord on the bottom of which he'd buried Angrboda (beautiful, radiant Angrboda, how he had loved her) all those years ago.

"I don't know what to do," he'd told the cold winter air. "I didn't mean for any of this."

"You never mean for _anything_ ," Angrboda's ghost (except not really; just his memories, the love he'd never stopped clinging to) had said, eyebrow quirked, lopsided smirk on her lips. "It's been a while, Loki."

"I've missed you," he'd told her, reached out so he was nearly touching her.

"By your own choice, husband. I'm always here; you're the one who stays away."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be silly. I have no feelings to hurt anymore," she'd said, smiling. "But you do. What's hurting you, my beloved?"

"I think love him, Angrboda," he'd said, forced himself not to reach out to touch her. "I think I love them, but I can't. It's not my place. There's a plan. There's rules."

He hadn't expected her to smack him. "To Hel's estates with plans and rules, you stupid oaf!" she'd yelled. "When have you _ever_ respected either?"

"It's not that easy!" he'd argued.

"It's _exactly_ that easy! You go to them, and you hold on to them, and you _burn_ anything that tries to take them away from you!"

"Angrboda-"

"No! You ran from your old name, you ran from your grief for me, you ran from the responsibility for your children, you ran from the punishment meted out by your peers, and from _everything_ since then. Stop being such a _coward_ , Loki! For once in your life, stop _running_!"

And that's what decided it, really. His son's words from long ago, echoed in the voice of his long-dead wife. So he left, not running away this time, but _towards_.

\---

And now, he's standing outside the door of a motel room in Alabama, being stared down by a stone-faced John Winchester.

"I'm sorry," he says.

"You left," John replies, voice hard and flat. "The boys wondered where you went." _You left me sleeping and didn't even say goodbye,_ he doesn't say, but Loki hears it nonetheless.

"I..." He barely knows what to say. He could make up a great lie, but that would be too much like running, and he can't do that, not here, today. "I... was afraid," he says, and it's true, painfully true. "You terrify me. Sam and Dean terrify me. The way you make me feel... It paralyzes me."

And John looks taken aback at that, like he wasn't expecting something true, something significant.

"I was afraid," Loki says. "So I ran. I... I'm a coward. It's what I do." He sighs, drags a hand through his hair in frustration. "But I don't _want_ to run away anymore. You and the boys... _You're_ what I want."

Then he stands there, under John's flinty eyes, and waits to be judged. Waits to be let inside, or turned away.

John stares at him for a very long time, and Loki can feel the dread crawl into his chest, and when John turns his eyes away, the dread settles heavily into awful resignation.

"You're not forgiven," John says, and Loki is confused as he steps back, keeps the door open. At his hesitation, John's mouth takes on an annoyed slant. "Well, are you coming inside or what?"

And Loki can't believe the words coming out of John's mouth. "Are you serious?"

John just looks at him like he's an idiot. "If I were you, I'd get the hell in here before I change my goddamn mind."

So Loki does, and he's sure that he can feel John smiling at least a little bit when he kisses him.


End file.
